Globally major oil and gas producers are cutting more than $40 billion in spending and shedding thousands of staff members in the wake of crude’s price falls. The North Sea, with its high operating costs, ageing infrastructure and scarcity of large new fields, is felt to be particularly vulnerable, and Aberdeen has already clocked over a thousand job cuts as companies scramble to maintain cash-flow by cutting operating costs, exploration and development programs.

Electricity storage offers a practical solution to the chronic problem of intermittency in renewable energy supplies. It can promise lower energy costs and also serves to replace conventional standby fossil plants.

Northern Europe’s stormy winter may weigh heavily on the dispositions of its inhabitants but the exceptionally gusty winds this winter have caused wind-generated electricity production to soar, breaking one record after another in 2014 and early 2015.

The experts seem to be united in the view that to reach the global climate goals without Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is almost impossible. In the US and Canada CO2 is already frequently and profitably used, primarily to increase on shore oil and gas production (Enhanced Oil Recovery – EOR). In Europe the conditions are different to those in North America. However, leading CCS research institutions in the Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland) are cooperating on the NORDICCS project, which has resulted in the Nordic CCS roadmap.

Good and bad news for the UK. The good news is that, under OECD forecasts, the country is the fastest growing G7 economy. With a growth rate of 3.2% and unemployment at 6.5%, in 2015 the UK GDP will rise faster than the US. The bad news is that the energy crisis that has been looming over the country for, at least, the last twenty years could dissolve all of this any moment.

Implementing the No-Regrets Scenario on the Ground: Investment Challenges and Market Design in the European Power Sector.

Part II Market Design

18 December 2014 by Daria Nochevnik

While the first part of this article addressed the investment challenges that the European power sector is facing today, in particular, the infrastructure development or the ‘hardware’ of the system, the present contribution turns to the ‘software’ of it. The latter includes the issues related the implementation of the EU Target Model for electricity markets (Target Electricity Model – TEM) market design and development and adoption of network codes.

Implementing the No-Regrets Scenario on the Ground: Investment Challenges and Market Design in the European Power Sector. A TSO perspective.

Part I Policy Strategy and Investment Challenge

4 December 2014 by Daria Nochevnik

Securing Europe’s competitive energy future is undoubtedly the key challenge in view of EU’s endorsement of the 2030 climate and energy framework last October, as well as the 2050 decarbonisation target. In order to achieve the latter, it is estimated that some 2.2. trillion dollars in investments are needed by 2035 (IEA World Energy Investment Outlook, 2014). To this end, a number of studies, including the World Energy Council’s report [note 1], released last week point out that challenges associated with regulatory uncertainty as well as the contradictory outcomes of addressing the energy trilemma of sustainability, affordability and energy security, impair the investment climate in the sector.

The oil and gas boom in the United States was made possible by the extensive credit afforded to drillers. Not only has financing come from company shareholders and traditional banks, but hundreds of billions of dollars have also come from junk-bond investors looking for high returns.

Ever since the global financial crisis and the onset of recession the demand for gas in Europe - particularly from the power generation sector – has steadily declined. In 2010 gas consumption in the EU and Switzerland was equivalent to 522 billion cubic metres (bcm) but by 2013 demand had dropped to 462 bcm. This fall of 60bcm in gas consumption is roughly equivalent to the annual gas consumption of Italy according to Eurogas 2014. However, gas consumption in 2014 appears to have bottomed out according to Professor Jonathan Stern, Natural Gas Research Programme, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES). Furthermore, he adds, “most forecasts see demand slowly turning round and increasing but it will not get back to 2010 levels until the early or mid (and in some projections late) 2020s.

To stay competitive, conventional power stations are faced with the need to become more flexible. But what do maintenance specialists have to look out for when enhancing the flexibility of existing older power plants? In addition to cost savings, maintenance experts will have to place greater emphasis on the analysis and consideration of operational requirements in the future.

Germany’s beleaguered solar industry rejoiced when the government-owned development bank KfW and the federal environment ministry announced loans and repayment support for combined rooftop PV and battery storage options of up to 30 kW. The sector thought it spotted an opportunity to redeem itself on the German and international markets with a technology that German PV and energy management firms had long been perfecting.

Six years ago, when the then Labour government in the UK was “inviting” private companies to invest in new nuclear power stations, ministers were very definite that they had no intention whatsoever of providing subsidies. They insisted that it would be for private companies “to fund, develop and build new nuclear power stations . . . including meeting the full costs of decommissioning and their full share of waste management costs”.

Oh, and by the way, the first new stations would start to come on stream by 2018, thus helping to fill a looming generation gap.

There clearly is a problem with the European energy security (and security of gas supplies). Where do the roots of this problem come from? The Platts European Gas Summit, which took place in Berlin last week, I thought, would give me a glimpse of reasonable understanding of today’s solutions and approaches to the issue. For example, did conceptual thinking about energy security evolve over the past years? What are the main challenges – lately not so much in the realm of deliveries as such, but safety of critical infrastructure, including cyber security – that can pose actual limits on supplies? How market forces – particularly with relation to gas trade – may or may not affect energy security? The world is changing, and so does the energy security debate, after all. However, I was left wondering if the purpose of the summit was really to find any solutions and explanations, or rather, to promote one single idea.

Security of natural gas supplies in the European Union (EU) is among the most topical issues in the energy policy field today. Furthermore, the best ways for its improvement are reviewed almost on a daily bases. Europe’s dependence on natural gas supplies from third countries – among them the world’s biggest natural gas exporter – the Russian Federation – is regarded as one of the weak points in its energy policy both in mid and long term perspectives. In order to guarantee security of supply for certain technically well-interconnected countries with a fairly large share of natural gas in overall national primary energy consumption – for example, three Baltic States - the use of underground natural gas storage (UGS) facilities is regarded as one of the most sustainable options. Here, however, the availability of geological structures suitable for storage and supply of natural gas are crucial.

A new law approved by the Ukrainian parliament earlier last month, which may ban the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine and prompt possible revisions of natural gas contracts of European countries with Moscow, sent a wave of speculations about the security of Russian gas supplies to Europe. Given that Gazprom’s policy of tying gas rates to oil-indexed prices had already led to disputes with a number of European customers in the recent past, the latter fear further cuts in gas deliveries because of the political crisis in Ukraine and potential changes in contract terms. The armed conflict in eastern Ukraine and the European Union’s own economic sanctions imposed on Russia, following the shooting down of the Malaysian commercial airliner along the Ukraine-Russia border, threaten stable supplies of natural gas from Russia. Europe relies on Russia for 29 percent of its natural gas needs. Supply disruptions to the continent could be particularly onerous with the onset of the cold weather, as evidenced in 2006 and 2009.

Europe’s energy companies are facing public protests and opposition to almost every newly announced potentially disruptive energy project. For example, protests against a new power line in Bavaria occurred in July 2014. Widespread and prolonged opposition by locals and outsiders, camped in the village of Balcombe UK, protested against fracking in 2013 and protests against wind farms in Ireland occurred during January 2014. There are too many examples of energy projects generating protests and opposition leading to costly delays and even abandonment in spite of the likely environmental, market and energy security benefits such schemes are likely to bring to communities and the country.

Depleting offshore fields in the North Sea are forcing international oil companies (IOCs) to try their luck further up north, in Arctic waters. Due to global warming, Arctic ice is retreating and offering opportunities for offshore oil production. While the ‘Arctic pioneer’, Shell, has halted its projects in the Alaskan Arctic, activities in the Russian Arctic are increasing, a trend which Greenpeace is trying to curb. After the incident at Gazprom’s Prirazlomnaya platform in September last year, Greenpeace aims to increase pressure on Gazprom through Shell’s shareholders, such as asset managers and pension funds investing in Shell. EU and US sanctions have become an unexpected ally.

In the past, critics of nuclear power went to great lengths to point out nuclear energy’s inherent danger. But these days the safety arguments pack less punch: not because they’re any less valid but because the costs and financial risks of building new plants are so clearly prohibitive that nuclear power doesn’t make sense even if the safety risks were zero.

The Tokyo Electric Power Corporation (Tepco), that required saving from bankruptcy by the Japanese taxpayer, is soon coming to a power grid near you! The owner of the crippled reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is going overseas again. Faced with fuel costs that have doubled since the nuclear accident in March 2011 and with the future of nuclear energy in Japan still uncertain, Tepco is picking up the profitable foreign expansion the company broke off after the Fukushima disaster. It has a business plan approved for the investment abroad of JPY 230 billion (Euro 1,8 billion at current rates) in power plants, upstream gas assets and other projects over the next ten years.

As renewable energy source technologies continue to disrupt the energy market the dominant business model shifts away from generation in centralized power plants. Where business opportunity lies in the energy market of the future was one of the themes addressed at the Erasmus Energy Forum that took place June 19-20 in Rotterdam.

The European Union doesn’t have a common energy policy. That's not so surprising considering there are many different (political and economic) interests making it almost impossible to find a compromise on crucial projects. The best example is the South Stream pipeline, aimed at transporting Russian gas via the Black Sea to Central Europe and Italy, which divides the EU member states and its institutions.

On May 22, 2014, Turkey began shipping the first 1 million barrels of oil via the newly built Kurdistan-Turkey pipeline from the Kurdish semi-autonomous region of Iraq to Europe. Although this action will further complicate the relations between the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) and the Iraqi central government as well as Iraq and Turkey over the legality of KRG’s oil sales without the Iraqi government’s consent, the oil flow from Iraqi Kurdistan is unlikely to stop. According to an official statement of KRG, “this is the first of many such sales of oil exported through the newly constructed pipeline in the Kurdistan region”. Turkey’s role as a key destination and transit outlet for KRG’s oil exports has been incrementally growing since 2012 with trucks deliveries.

The EU is creating its own Bermuda Triangle. Only in this case it is not an area in the ocean where ships and planes mysteriously vanish, but a time triangle. In the long-term the EU and every state member faces the necessity of the energy transition. Whether the reason will be found in the environmental department, the decreasing availability and popularity of fossil fuels or the defence against the effects of a changing climate, there is no escape from this reality. In the medium-term, improving employment is number one on the priority list of the EU-Commission, if the financial crisis can definitely be left behind. In the short-term there is the confrontation between the Russian Federation and the EU over the Crimea annexation and the turmoil in Ukraine.

An increasing amount of energy and economic outlooks are published annually. In today’s blog entry, I would like to share the findings of the 2014 edition of Global and Russian Energy Outlook up to 2040, published on April 21 by the Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ERIRAS) and the Analytical Centre of the Government of the Russian Federation (ACRF) [note 1]. The significance of this document is that the two responsible institutions are regularly consulted by the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation when planning its Energy Strategy. The outlook can probably be labelled as the 'Russian version’ of IEA’s World Energy Outlook. The 2013 edition of the Global and Russian Energy Outlook with 'Shale breakthrough' and 'Shale failure' scenarios received the World Energy Council’s ‘Tomorrow’s Energy Award’.

Last week the US and EU announced the introduction of additional sanctions against Russian business people and politicians. Moreover, another set of economic sanctions, this time against various sectors of Russia’s economy, would be introduced in case the Ukrainian presidential elections are disrupted. In response, Russia stated that this might affect the collaboration between Western and Russian energy companies. Gazprom, the gas giant in charge of all Russian gas supplies to Europe, announced in its Management report that the Ukraine crisis may affect its European exports. Last month I already looked into the implications of the stand off, and in this blog post I would like to give an updated overview of the Russian perspective on this issue.

When fuels are as versatile as petroleum products are in transports, it is not surprising that several alternative fuels are needed to substitute for different vehicle types and usages. Petroleum products' qualities are their unsurpassed energy and volume density and their ease of handling.

Due to the current crisis in Ukraine and a potential disruption of Russian gas supplies, the world has recently discovered Slovakia – connecting Ukraine and the European Union. Although it is not larger than 50.000 kmē, through its huge pipelines Slovakia is able to transit 70 bcm of natural gas per year. For a long time only a westward direction has been used. But suddenly the option of establishing a reverse flow has become a focal point in the Ukrainian efforts to lessen its dependence on Russia. The Slovak Prime Minister has received a call from the US Vice President as well as a letter from the Russian President, while Slovakia has hosted delegations of the European Commission and Ukraine. Nevertheless the country has been accused of not being cooperative enough - or even of hindering the Ukrainian goal to import natural gas from the West. Is this true?

It is astonishing how quickly long-term scenarios can be hit sideways by actual developments. Only a few months ago the European Commission presented the new EU framework on climate and energy. The proposals to be analyzed by each member state before a decisive consensus can be reached are still on the printer. It is obvious that sanctions against Russia involving a decrease of gas and oil imports will influence basically any plan setting forth a vision for Europe’s energy future. But first let me summarize what the pillars of the framework for 2030 are.

Two days ago the US Secretary of State John Kerry announced a new set of sanctions being worked on at the White House. The sanctions are supposed to hit the finance, energy and raw materials sector of Russia. The EU calls on Russia to de-escalate the situation in Ukraine, otherwise economic sanctions will be imposed. It would be interesting to see to what extent any such action will actually influence Russia’s energy strategy and, in turn, decision making. In what way do the possible sanctions have the power to affect Russia’s planning when it comes to energy (primarily gas) exports?

Why Norway has the highest share of electric vehicles per capita in the world

3 April 2014 by Reiner Gatermann

They are neighbours, have almost the same cultural background, both with the ambition of being world’s best on green issues, have the same environmental goals and can already boast a CO2-free electricity production. Despite of these common attributes, Norway and Sweden have chosen different ways in the use of electric vehicles (EV) to fight CO2. Or better said: already several years ago, Norway decided to focus on EVs, whilst Sweden is still hesitating which way to go. In December last year, the Stockholm government was presented with an extensive expert report it is looking into. In the meantime Norway has become the country with the highest number of electric cars in the world per capita, and its capital, Oslo, represents the highest electric car density of any capital city.

What countrymen pay the highest price for natural gas in all of Europe?

26 March 2014 by Paul Hockenos

I certainly wouldn’t have guessed it before I went to Lithuania last week. But any taxi cab driver, bartender or student in the capital city of Vilnius can tell you that Lithuanians, who are nearly 100 percent dependent on Russian gas, have the continent’s worst contract with Gazprom. They pay 30 percent more than people in other EU member states. Even compared to its Baltic neighbours, Latvia and Estonia, Lithuania is getting screwed: Gazprom charges it 13 percent more than it does Estonia and 20 percent more than Latvia. It’s so bad that Lithuania has initiated an EU investigation into its contract’s terms. (Lithuania is demanding back 1.67 billion euro of claimed overcharges.)

The European gas industry isn’t going through an easy period. Demand is continuously declining, it´s losing out with coal and cannot offer a competitive price in comparison with US shale gas. Moreover, unlike the Western European gas markets, Central and Eastern Europe have to face low liquidity and a high dependence on Russian supplies. This awkward situation would not be changed much by the construction of South Stream and Nabucco´s rival TAP. Nevertheless, concerned countries, forming LNG Allies, see light at the end of the tunnel – US LNG shipments. Isn´t this idea too optimistic?

Ukraine has not left the top lines on the news since it got there nearly half a year ago: what seemed to be a fight about getting into the European orbit has transformed into a civil war-like struggle within the country and a cold war-like stand-off in world politics. The issue at stake is ultimately the future of the country, but this will have a direct impact on the European security - and energy supplies security in particular. One specific issue at stake that will likely determine the relations between East and West – or more specifically, Europe and Russia as the two sides Ukraine was looking at in search of its overall orientation – is the future of the Crimea peninsula and the way it is perceived and handled by these two forces. The referendum on the status of Crimea is scheduled for March 16th.

Each end of the year, Europe is closely watching the usual Russian-Ukrainian negotiations over the price of gas. We remember the 2009 gas crisis all too well, when gas supplies were cut off completely at Velké Kapusany – the most important entry point of the Russian gas to the European Union. An unimaginable shortage of gas supply at the Ukrainian Slovak border became a reality. It was freezing and Europe was not prepared for this. Today the reasons may be different but the threat is the same – a potential Big Zero. Last year a volume of 53.5 bcm was delivered via Velké Kapusany (a third of all Russian gas export to Europe) and its typical daily flow is currently around 110 mcm. However, what might occur if the flow is suddenly cut off?

The revamp of Germany’s clean-energy transition, or Energiewende, is hardly off to a flying start, something the new grand coalition in Berlin had been counting on. It had even created a new energy authority within the powerful economic planning ministry, now called the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy, to expedite the process. But the reforms are plodding along, still with no specifics on the raft of pressing issues on the agenda.

20 February 2014 by Pekka Ottavainen, Chairman of Fennovoima nuclear power company

In January, the European Commission published its climate and energy goals for 2030. Two of the key priorities are reducing emissions and ensuring a competitive and secure energy system, which are very laudable objectives. Nuclear power does both. It also facilitates a third objective, the wider use of renewable energy. Nuclear power creates the conditions in which renewable energy can be implemented, by providing a stable base load that is indispensable for modern societies and which wind and solar cannot guarantee at all times.

Responding to the 2030 energy and climate change policy framework published by the European Commission on 22nd January, the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC) pulled no punches in voicing its disappointment. In a highly critical analysis of the Impact Assessment that accompanied the Commission’s proposals – patronisingly entitled “Understanding the 2030 Climate and Energy Framework” – it wrote: “It is incomprehensible that there is no scenario setting three targets for greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), energy efficiency (EE) and renewable energy sources (RES).” To my mind, the most disappointing aspect of the Commission’s proposals was the retention of a “binding” target for how much of the EU’s energy should come from renewables.

The local electricity company in Kyushu, the most southern of the main islands in Japan’s archipelago, is tensely looking forward to the outcome of the election of a new mayor of faraway Tokyo, this Sunday. Two candidates are running on an anti-nuclear energy ticket. If one of them wins, it would be a severe blow to the already ailing efforts of the government of prime minister Shinzo Abe to get at least a couple of Japan’s fifty nuclear reactors back on the grid in the third biggest electricity market of the world.

On January 23, the Russian Ministry of Energy published the Main Statements of the Energy Strategy of Russia for the period up to 2035. As EER reported in December 2013, the main target to be handled through the coming years is to cope with two fundamental challenges: changing realities at the external markets, of which the Russian energy sector is heavily dependent; and slowing pace of domestic economic growth. It looks like, with the help of respectable research institutions, the Strategy took up the right pace: focus on the efficiency of the energy sector and use it as a foundation for the development of other sectors of the economy. Below I will summarise the key points of the document and provide some links for further reference.

Cutbacks in gas production in the northernmost Dutch province of Groningen look set to cost the treasury around 800 million euro a year over the next three years. But in the longer term it might turn out to be a good move, both for the Netherlands and the European market as a whole.

Writing about energy is a complicated business, especially for journalists who don’t specialize in the field – which is why one sees so many mistakes in energy-related stories. (And, of course, this is why there’s the likes of EER.) The Economist had been responsible for some of the worst stories in 2012 and 2013 – chock full of inaccuracies. This week’s contribution on the Energiewende has fewer, which is good of course – but nothing to brag about.

If Europe had one voice, energy prices could be reduced, claims IEA’s Fatih Birol

23 January 2014 by Ron van Duuren

Leading energy journalist Hughes Belin is joined by Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, to discuss the World Energy Outlook 2013. In this interview, Birol looks at global energy prices and analyses the big price difference between the US and Europe. “Energy markets are going through very dynamic times. Todaygas prices in Europe are 3 times higher than those in the US and electricity in Europe istwice as expensive as in the US“.

Is there space for common energy policy for Central Asian states in relation to the external energy markets?

20 January 2014 by Irina Mironova

While my colleagues in Europe are reporting on the Green Capitals and new developments in the international markets (in a sense of market completion, see Reiner Gatermann’s blog entry and an insightful interview with ACER’s director delivered by Josef Badida), my latest assignment brought me to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Just as I was writing this essay, the power went off. Which made it even more exciting to write about the role of Central Asia in international energy markets and particularly European energy security: the essence of the energy security concept is hugely different in these two regions. If in Europe it is about the access to energy of any particular household, the quality of air and the like, the further you move into the Eastern Partnership target area, the less you care about the cleanliness of the air, and the more about the fact that your computer actually works.

Not only among politicians and in the business community, but also among the 560,000 inhabitants of the Danish capital, 1.2 million in Greater Copenhagen, here is hardly any doubt what Copenhagen will be in 2025: the first CO2 neutral capital in the world. The EU describes this goal as “ambitious”, but is at the same time so impressed by the city’s strategy that it awarded it the title “European Green Capital 2014”.

If you look up ACER in a search engine you are likely to end up on the website of the Taiwanese PC titan. Among European energy stakeholders, however, ACER is equally well-known as a young but influential energy body based in Ljubljana. Launched as the product of the 3rd Energy Package, the organisation has always been at the centre of attention among new EU Member States. A fierce battle over the seat of the Agency was fought between Slovenia, Slovakia and Romania in 2009. And even today, the Czech Republic expresses its willingness to accommodate the Agency´s potential branch. Therefore its very first Director Alberto Pototschnig was also invited to the Central European Energy Conference 2013 in Bratislava, in order to bring the latest news from his Office. EER will bring you an exclusive interview with Pototschnig later on this week, tackling various intriguing issues.

America's newest, most expensive coal-fired power plant (in Mississippi) is said to be one of the cleanest on the planet. This is the result of government-backed technology that removes CO2 and keeps it out of the atmosphere. The US government makes it possible for power companies to sell the CO2 to oil companies, who pump it into old oil fields to force more crude to the surface. This has a downside. Stripping away the carbon in itself and stocking it underground is benefiting the environment, but at the same time this solution is leading to something that is not so green at all: oil.

In the wake of the October 2013 national elections, Germany’s Energiewende supporters had every reason to be dispirited. The coalition negotiations between Merkel’s Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats dragged on and on. When the Energiewende was mentioned at all, it was in terms of slowing the transition’s pace, scaling back the feed-in tariff, diluting efficiency standards, protecting the coal industry, and making yet more exemptions for industry (the latter in blatant contradiction to the SPD’s campaign promises). The fact that the parties shifted the renewable energy portfolio from the environment ministry to the powerful ministry for economic planning seemed to bode ill rather than good, like putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop.